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To the 19th-century fishermen who coined the term, El Nino was a warm Pacific Ocean current that affected their catch off the coast of Peru. They named the current El Nino, Spanish for "the Christ child," because it usually arrived around Christmas. Later, scientists noted that every few years an especially strong current brought unusually warm surface waters to the eastern Pacific. In these years the current caused changes to weather patterns not only in South America but throughout the world. Today the name El Nino refers to this broader climatic phenomenon.